126 DieffenhacKs New Zealand and the New Zeo,landers, 

 ART,,^XIir. On the Culture of the Chinese Primrose. By John" 



GULLETT. 



Having for several years succeeded in growing my Primula sinensis in great 

 perfection, I submit the following system of cultivation. I endeavour to get 

 my seeds ripe, but sometimes I sow them when just turned brown, in the 

 last week in July, or first week in August, placing them on a little heat, to get 

 them up as soon as possible. When the second leaf gets the size of a six- 

 pence, I pot them off in thumb-pots in the following compost : one third well 

 decomposed leaf mould, one third sandy peat, and one third two-years-old cow- 

 dung. In five or six weeks, I shift them into 60'Sized pots ; and when they 

 have filled those pots with their roots, which will be in about two months, I shift 

 them again into 48-sized pots, and in these I blow them, keeping them in a cold 

 frame till February, when I take them into the greenhouse, and have them in 

 bloom in March, at the time all the treatises on the Chinese primrose which 

 I have seen recommend to sow the seed. 



You see I gain a season; and my flowers are much larger and finer than 

 those I see any where else. 



Woodbine Cottage Gardens, Oct. 23. 1842. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. Neio Zealand and the New Zealanders. By Ernest DieiFen- 

 bach, M.D., Naturalist to the New Zealand Company, Honorary 

 Member of the Aborigines Protection Society. Pamph. 8vo, 

 pp. 30. London, 1841. 



Travels in New Zealand ; with Contributions to the Geography, 

 Geology, Botany, and Natural History of that Country. By Ernest 

 DiefFenbach, M.D., late Naturalist to the New Zealand Company. 

 In two volumes 8vo, pp. 827. London, 1843. 



The first of these works is a pamphlet chiefly occupied with an account of 

 the native population. The second is a very interesting relation of what the 

 author saw during several journeys into various parts of New Zealand, in the 

 years 1839, 1840, and 1841; including a grammar, dictionary, and specimens 

 of the New Zealand language. 



In pointing out the superiority of New Zealand to other British colonies. 

 Dr. Dieffenbach observes " that the climate is not only similar to that of 

 England, but even milder than that of our most southern counties, whilst, 

 at the same time, it is healthy and invigorating ! The children of Eu- 

 ropeans, born in this country, show no deterioration from the beauty of the 

 original stock, as they do in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. A 

 great part of the country possesses a soil which yields all those articles of 

 food which are necessary for the support of Europeans, especially grain, 

 potatoes, fruit, and every variety of garden vegetables ; it possesses materials 

 for ship-building and domestic architecture in its timber, marble, and freestone ; 

 the coal which has been found will probably prove sufficient in quantity for 

 steam-engines and manufactories ; its coasts are studded with harbours and 

 inlets of the sea; it is intersected by rivers and rivulets ; its position between 

 two large continents is extremely fiivourable; in short, it unites in itself every- 

 thing requisite for the support of a large population in addition to the native 

 inhabitants. No other country possesses such facilities for the establishment 

 of a middle class, and especially of a prosperous small peasantry, insuring 

 greatness to the colony in times to come. 



" It is, I conceive, no small praise to a country that in it labour and industry 

 can procure independence, and even affluence ; that in it no droughts destroy 

 the fruits of the colonist's toil ; no epidemic or pestilence endangers his family ; 



